Governments should spend on public services or the arts ?

ĐỀ 11/6/2011

Governments should only use their spending on public services and not waste money on the arts (e.g music and painting). Agree or disagree?

AGREE : Public services : immediate benefits for entire society

DISAGREE :

-         Long-term worth : enriching people’s spiritual life

-         Destination for visitors to contemplate

-         Generate a huge profit

How to allocate fairly government’s budget for a variety of social demands from health care, infrastructure to other mental ones such as arts remains controversial. Some people insist on that money should be earmarked more for public services and less for arts while others believe each area should be receive an inequitable amount of spending for its unique value contributed to social development. I part agree with the latter view for the following reasons.

 Admittedly, public services are of immediate benefit for the entire society. The issues of health care, education, and infrastructure are always top concerns of any government that wants to recruit high-skilled labor, strong workforce and modern facilities. To countries, say, Vietnam, Cambodia still struggling with abject misery after wars, a big amount of spending for music and painting proves infeasible.

However, the need for arts is rising these days for their long-term worth, especially during the time the country is beyond the peak of economic development and gears itself towards sustainable growth. With music, painting and other kinds of arts gaining their popularity, people’s spiritual life is continuously enriched. Such cities, say, Florence, Paris and Madrid are always unforgettable destinations of millions of visitors for their spectacular artistic creations and lure them into a different world where people are away from worries and let their creativity take off. These cities are also homes to various well-known art geniuses from Picasso, Leona De-Vinci to Gaudy who led art revolutions, partly by dint of their governments’ greater appreciation of this field and bigger expenditure on it. America and Britain are, too, other examples of nations where music industry overwhelms other key ones for their greatest generation of profit. This is again derived from their governments’ frequent organiztion of musical shows and festivals to attract audience worldwide.

In a word, governments should pay more attention to key sectors when their nations are in the embryonic stage of growth, but once they escape the life of poverty, arts should have bigger says for their mental, educational and economic merits.

-             Infeasible (adj) không thể làm được – (n) infeasibleness/ infeasibility

-         Sustainable (adj) bền vững = durable (lâu bền, ổn định)

-         Gear + towards (v) : hướng đến, dành riêng

-         Spectacular (adj) hấp dẫn, đẹp mắt, ngoạn mục, thu hút sự chú ý của mọi người